Terrorist trio targeted NYC subways beca...

Terrorist trio targeted NYC subways beca...

Ed Andrieski/AP

Najibullah Zazi, in a 2009 photo, testified Wednesday that he targeted subways because they are “the heart of everything.”

They wanted to put a stake in the heart of New York.

Would-be terrorist Najibullah Zazi testified Wednesday that he and his cronies targeted the transit system for a martyrdom attack to maximize the damage.

"People commute all the time on buses and subways, Zazi testified during the Brooklyn Federal Court trial of former high school pal Adis Medunjanin.

The subway is the heart of everything in New York City."

Medunjanin is on trial for plotting to blow up subways with bombs made from beauty-salon chemicals. Zazi and fellow Flushing High School buddy Zarein Ahmedzay cut deals with prosecutors to testify.

In his second day on the stand, Zazi, 26, described how the trio came up with a plan while training in a Pakistan terror camp in the summer of 2008 with Al Qaeda goon Adnan Shukrijumah.

"We discussed about targets that damage the United States economy and which public areas would have better impact afterward," he said.

Shukrijumah suggested hitting a Wal-Mart because he believed its high sales volume was integral to the country's economy.

Zazi, who had worked as a coffee vendor in lower Manhattan, thought the New York Stoc k Exchange was the way to go.

They settled on the transit system after viewing martyrdom videos of the London subway bombers.

"Subway was already shown to us in the videos, you know, how much damage it was done in England," Zazi told Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bitkower.

He said Al Qaeda taught him how to construct a detonator and charge from household chemicals and create a deadly payload with ball-bearings and nails.

"The ball-bearings would go like bullets," he said.

The three men became radicalized by what they saw as the U.S. and NATO's "occupation" of Afghanistan.

They wanted to join the Taliban but abandoned that plan after Shukrijumah convinced them to carry out a lethal mission on U.S. soil.

Shukrijumah, who remains a fugitive, pointed out that the men could return to America without arousing suspicion.